once the big stuff is done (demo! framing! roof!), the middle stuff is B-O-R-(yawn) let’s talk about my garden for a minute. it’s parched. scorching weather/no rain/water shut-off. and yet…

how sweet is that? i’m going back this morning to battle the thorns for more blackberries.

house stuff on the inside: the plumbing rough-in has passed inspection and the heating and wiring are underway. sprinkler guy starts next week. i’m still working through the lighting plan in my head. i would suggest not paying an architect to draft one, since it turned out to be mostly useless. so many switches!

the sun tunnel has made it down to the basement. laundry chute (made from heating ducts) is in place.

house stuff on the outside: the city tree-trimming crew happened by yesterday and hacked the beautiful maple into a shadow of its former self. argh! ‘imagine that you went to a hairdresser with long hair and asked for an inch off the bottom – and then came out with a crewcut. horrible.

a massive trench was dug and then filled in to connect our sump pit to the city’s new water/sewer connection. front and side yards totally trashed – rocks and clay abound.

From the (high-end) quote that I got, we figured the cost (all-told) of raising the house would be around $40K. The actual lifting part itself was less than $7K, but all the structural work, etc. that needed to be done added up to quite a bit more.

I’ve heard tales of more than $60K (when part of the foundation collapsed during the process) and less than $30K (a stream-lined event), but these are just ball-park figures.